Archive | March, 2011

I often get asked about running my Ultimate Chiropractic Ads as inserts in the newspaper, as opposed to a space ad inside the paper. Many chiropractors have never tried inserts and are quite surprised at the return on investment they can get.

If you’re using my ads, I strongly recommend testing inserts for your zip code at least once. (Of course you can try inserts even if you don’t have my ads, but I can’t promise you’ll get good results.) If your ad cost to run in the main section of the paper is going to be above $1,500 or $2,000, you should try inserts as your first three runs.

If you’re running in a major metro city paper, inserts would be better to start with because you can just run in the zip codes for your area.

For example, if you were out on the edge of a big city, like in a small suburb, you’re not going to have that many subscribers in some areas for the major paper. In this case you should run inserts for your zip code instead of paying full price to run in Section A, the news section. Running inserts in a large city paper is a very good thing when looking at your overall marketing plan. It can give you a lot of options and multiple places to run your ad.

You could run a half-page ad in the small, local paper, and then inserts in the big city paper for your area. This allows you to run basically two different ads in the same exact area in two different papers.

With my ad kit you have plenty of ads to rotate and run, and although it’s possible, don’t just build your practice on one ad.

Typically inserts will be a little bit more expensive than running a half-page, a full-page, or a quarter-page ad, but many times inserts will produce better results.
There are different reasons for this, not that it really matters, because the fact that you get a better result is good enough.
But in case you’re curious, let’s look at what advantages inserts offer:

- people can hang on to it longer, putting it on the refrigerator for example,
– the insert’s easier to handle and read
– inserts fall out of the paper, so prospects are more likely to notice it
– it looks a different color than the “gray” newspaper
– inserts are a different size
– inserts stand out from the rest of the paper

All of these factors have an effect on the insert’s higher response over a “display” or space ad. One of the major benefits of an insert is that it’s not right next to any other ad. You don’t have to worry about losing the person’s attention. It’s not mixed in with other articles either, so they can’t really skip over it.

Many newspapers will allow you to bring already printed inserts to their facilities, and they will charge you what’s called an insert fee. There are two fees sometimes quoted regarding inserts: a printing fee and an insertion fee. The insertion fees is where someone actually is putting an insert into each of the papers before they go out in the morning.

In my experience, the insert fee usually the bigger expense. For most papers it’s more cost effective to have the newspaper print the inserts, as opposed to taking them to your own printer. You will have to shop around with your local printers and compare prices to determine which route is best for you.

I know for one of the major big city papers that I ran in, the insert fee was about 70% to 80% of the total cost that they quoted me. Which meant it wasn’t likely I would save much by printing the inserts myself.

But I would shop around and at least find out.

I compared it to the option of paying a local printer, then driving the inserts over to the newspaper’s facility, and paying the insert fee.
It was going to cost me double the price to do it this way! So I decided to just let the newspaper handle everything.

Sometimes newspapers will even have specials on inserts. That’s something you’ll want to ask your ad rep about. If they’re trying to get more inserts into the paper or they’re trying to get new business, the ad rep will give you a special discount.

Millions of people access Google’s search engine every minute. Some of them are within driving distance of your practice, and they are looking for a chiropractor to help them. You can reach these prospective patients by running little pay per click ads on Google’s Adwords network. Here are 5 strategies for success in your Google Adwords campaigns.

#1. Choose the right keywords.

Keywords are the terms people are searching for. Doctors usually think of chiropractic, chiropractor, and all of it’s derivatives. But terms like back pain, neck pain, headaches, sciatica, etc have great potential. People searching for these conditions are looking for information, usually have or know someone who has the problem, and are motivated to do something about it. Think of the problems people come into your office with, and do some research using Google’s keyword tool.

#2. Write effective ads.

When writing your ads, you only have so many spaces to get your message across. No time for wasting words. You only get 25-35 characters for four lines of text, two of which are your headline and website address. Here’s the proven formula for your ads:

First line should contain your keyword in a headline type phrase

Second line should be a benefit you offer, for example “Get Rid Of Migraines”

Line three should describe a feature offer, like “Without Drugs Or Surgery”

Line four is your URL, with each word capitalized and using a keyword if possible

#3. Improve Your CTR.

Your click through rate (CTR) is very important to you and to Google. How much you pay, what position your ad is in, and your quality score all relate to your CTR. To get your CTR higher, make sure you are in ad position 2-5 on the first page. As your CTR goes up, you can readjust your bid to lower your position, and still keep your CTR up. If your CTR goes below .5%, Google can pull your ads from running on their searches.

One easy way to improve your CTR is through split testing. Adwords has a built in feature to their system that allows you to run tests. They will rotate your ads evenly and give you the stats to determine which ad is winning. By continuously testing your ads against each other, you can improve your CTR and your clicks.

#4. Watch Your Quality Score.

Google currently has three levels of quality score. “Ok”,”Poor” and “Great”. The better your quality score is, the less you will pay per click. Google won’t tell you exactly how to improve your score, but they do reveal a few keys to help you. One is to make sure you have your keyword in your ad and headline. Having it as part of your URL (domain name) can help to. Another way to improve quality score is by having a higher CTR. And the most important factor of all, and the one that will give you the most headache, is the quality of your landing page.

#5. Improve Your Landing Page.

A landing page is where the person lands after clicking through your Adwords ad. For multiple reasons I don’t have room to list here, I do not recommend the landing be on your “main site”. A simple page that collects information like name and email address works much better than putting them on a website with multiple options. You should have a headline, some copy, some bullet points, and testimonials. Videos and audios work very well too.

Use to, you built your landing page for your visitor. Since 2006, you also have to build it to please Google. This is because your Adwords ad quality score is based on the “relevancy” of your landing page. Google wants to make sure your page is relevant to your keyword and to your ad. If your landing page is not relevant, you can be “slapped” with a high cost per click, in the range of $5-10. To help with this, make sure you have a privacy policy, your keyword is listed about 10-20% of the time on the page, and that you have a link out to some “big” sites like your main website and blog.

This week I’m in L.A. at a conference, but I wanted you to see one of the most popular blog posts I’ve ever written. It was also the most controversial. Tell me if you agree or not. Read it and leave your comments below.
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Have you ever been told you needed to see a large number of visits per week to be successful in practice? While it’s not going to make some of the coaches who read my blog happy (yes I do look at my subscriber list), I’m going to let you in on a little secret…

You Don’t Need High Volume To Be Profitable In Practice

I’m not certain where this got started.

It was likely back in the early days of chiropractic, where chiropractors only did adjustments and everyone charged the same price. Under those conditions, it makes sense that the more visits you see the more you’ll collect each week.

But to believe that today is simply false.

Every doctor has different prices, different therapies, different equipment.

You see, most chiropractic coaches lead you to believe that high volume (or at least more visits) is the way to go. Some even make you feel bad about your practice if you’re not seeing what the top doctors in their coaching group are doing.

Here are some of the ways the high volume lie is used by coaches to make doctors feel guilty…

-when you do an event like a P.A.D. or dinner workshop and you don’t get 60 new patients from it

-when you’re not seeing 1000 visits per week many will say you aren’t “sacrificing enough” or “you don’t have a big enough mission yet”

- if you’re not getting “x” number of referrals per week like the big guns are, you’re not “on purpose”

Number of visits per week is only part of the practice success formula I teach. Dollars of income per patient visit is a much more telling number.

Here’s how you cut through the fluff and find out how these high volume doctors are really doing. Ask them for their average collected amount per visit. Not there “estimated care plan” numbers, but the real deal. I’m about to reveal to you the secret formula no high volume coach wants you to know….

$collected each month divided by your monthly patient visits= average $ per visit

Wow, eye-opening isn’t it. (But believe it or not, this stat is does not show up on any of the coaching group’s statistics forms I’ve been a part of in the past.) Turns out most high volume doctors are making less than $30 per visit, some even lower than that.

Funny story about coaching groups and high volume real quick…

One group I was a part of did put your monthly collections number on your name badge at the seminars. They did it as a mental boosting type of thing, where you were excited to show up and get your new badge when you hit a certain goal.

The thing I really like about it was this…

No one could come up and B.S. you about their practice. A guy could come up and talk all day about seeing 300 a week, but if his “badge number” was lower than mine, his advice went in one ear and out the other. Turns out high volume guys weren’t the mentors everyone looked up to in this group, it was the “high income” guys instead.

I’ve seen moderately high volume and I’ve seen what most would consider low volume. Guess which practice was more profitable, had lower stress, and allowed me to take time off?

When I was “higher volume”, I was was flat broke making $17 per visit because I was giving away care for free. At the lower volume, I was getting $90 per visit. Maybe I wasn’t making as huge an impact on the planet as the guys seeing 1000 a week, but you know what…I was making a huge impact on the patients I did see each week.

And I was making the biggest impact of all…being there as a father for my children!

What’s really going on here is that these coaches are imposing their values, their goals in life, they beliefs on you. If you really want to see 1000 visits per week, that’s great, go for it. But don’t believe the lie that you can’t be happy without seeing high volume, or that high volume equals high income.

It urns out the low volume practice fit my lifestyle better. I wanted to help people get well, make a good living, and spend time with my family. None of those things require high volume.

What about you? What do you want out of your practice? If you want a high volume practice, tell us why? Let us know in the comments below.

It’s no secret. You feel it. I feel it. No other time in history have there been so many forces fighting against the success of hard working chiropractors.

Low insurance payouts, Medicare cuts, and a restrictive HMO/PPO contracts have all combined to make it difficult on chiropractic offices nationwide.
Add to that the recent recession, which continues to put many doctors out of business, and you have what some call the Perfect Storm.

Chiropractor’s personal income has been declining. Sadly some have even had to close their doors and find a job working for someone else.

It’s not getting any easier. Even with all the questions regarding the new Health Care Reform Act, things are likely to get much worse. Wouldn’t you agree?

While as doctors, our heart always aches to help every patient, we’ve got to pay the bills or else close the doors. While the occasional charity case is seen in chiropractors offices (probably more than any other health care profession), most of us did not open our practice to struggle through.
As a doctor of chiropractic you should get paid, and get paid well for what you do.

1. PI cases are at a minimum 2-3 times higher in payouts than Major Med or Medicare patients.
It’s very likely that someone involved in a motor vehicle collision will require more care than the average chiropractic patient. Not necessarily more visits, although that could be the case, but more services per visit due to bruising, ligament damage, disc herniations, etc.

2. PI cases are not part of the national healthcare/health insurance mess.
Who knows what’s going to happen with the changes in medical insurance. But, one thing we do know is that these changes do not apply to Auto Insurance Policies. This means if done the right way, you’ll get paid for what you did on that injured PI patient.

3. Most Auto carriers pay generous fees for your services.
Have you ever had your fees cut 40%…50%…60% by a Major Med carrier? Rarely have I seen a PI carrier cut PI case fees. What about attorneys cutting fees?

4. You’ve got an attorney fighting for the patient (and you!)
Attorneys aren’t always bad right? Especially when they’re working for your patient so you can get paid. Sure it takes a bit longer to get paid on some PI cases, but at 2-3 times the payout, it’s well worth it.

5. There are copious amounts of studies backing up your care for auto injuries.
If you’re trying to build your case as to why the patient needed all the care you provided, you’ve got a plethora of studies that have been published in peer-reviewed journals. This comes in very handy when writing a narrative.

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About Dr. Michael Beck

Dr. Beck took his practice from near bankruptcy to $30k a month using new marketing strategies he learned from top marketing experts. These included newspaper ads, internet and email marketing, yellow pages, networking and more. Dr. Beck also is an experienced copywriter and has written successful copy for very high conversion websites and newspaper ads.